Pages: 127-128

126
LENIN COLLECTION
20766
NOTE TO THE ARTICLE "THE TSAR-FATHER AND THE BARRICADES"

True, our profoundly thoughtful (profoundly thoughtful in Martynovskian fashion) New Iskrists have endeavored to obscure, weaken, and drag back this slogan (cf. No. 62 of Iskra, editorial: Are We Preparing Thus?). But the New Iskrist Martynovian position encounters decisive opposition in our party, especially since the celebrated plan of "agreements" with the zemstvo men regarding the non-production of panic fear*.

20758
ON PALACE SQUARE. A LETTER FROM AN EYEWITNESS.

The German Social-Democratic newspaper "Vorwärts" publishes the following private letter from a St. Petersburg lawyer:

"On the morning of January 9 (22), I went along the Nevsky towards Palace Square, where workers were gathering to present petitions to the tsar himself. But I was unable to reach the square itself. At first I stood at the building of the General Staff, whose façade faces both the Nevsky and Palace Square. I could not see what was happening on the square because there stood before me a cavalry detachment separating the crowd on the Nevsky from the crowd on Admiralty Square and in Alexander Garden. From time to time one heard cries of hurrah! from one side or the other. In general the crowd conducted itself very quietly and restrainedly. Many protested against the hurrah cries, which might have provoked some violence. Twice I saw squadrons with drawn weapons riding from Palace Square onto Admiralty Street. We learned that a sacred procession of workers with a cross—a procession with the priest Gapon at its head, petition in hand—had been dispersed and that workers had been driven back everywhere. The workers standing near me said: 'Yes, now it is clear that we shall get no help from the tsar. We asked for bread, and they gave us bullets in reply.' From Palace Square and from Alexander Garden came no sound, but this was merely the calm before the storm. Suddenly on Palace Square there rang out a volley, then another, then a third. From the crowd standing before us they began carrying out the killed and wounded. With my own eyes I saw many killed and wounded, including among others a young girl who was killed, a young man who was killed. The killed and wounded were carried along the Nevsky. One girl, apparently a [student] course attendant, we carried into the courtyard of a neighboring house and laid her on a bench, which was immediately covered with blood. There was a wound on her forehead, but probably there was another wound as well, since the dead girl lay face upward. A wounded woman was brought into an apartment, her wound was washed, a bandage was applied, because there were still signs of life, and then she was carried away. The rage and indignation of the crowd reached its highest point. The crowd literally occupied all the neighboring places on the Nevsky and Gogol Street, beating without mercy all the military men who rode past in sleighs. I saw how the crowd beat two gendarme officers and two artillery ensigns until they bled. From one they took away his saber and tore off his epaulettes; another managed to escape by running. The crowd attacked one infantry officer, one guardsman, and also took his saber from him. An elderly general was wounded by a bottle in the forehead, his epaulettes were torn from him, his cap was knocked off amidst cries of hurrah. They beat one naval captain. All this was happening in the vicinity of troops who could do nothing about it. On the Nevsky, not far from Morskaya, the crowd [improvised] formed, without any preparation, a large popular assembly. I heard two fiery speeches. One ended with the cry: Down with autocracy!—a cry which the crowd picked up with enthusiasm. The other speech ended with an appeal: To arms! The crowd received this appeal too with great sympathy. But then one company of riflemen appeared, then another. The crowd was split into two parts and pushed back towards the Moyka embankment. The riflemen occupied the Police Bridge. I stood to the side, near the exit from the Hall of Nobility (Adelsklub). Suddenly a volley rang out from the other bank of the Moyka, and within a few minutes they began carrying away the wounded, drenched in blood. On the other bank too stood a large crowd of people. It remained completely calm. Apparently it was not carried away by any noise of battle; all were shaken by the impressions and stood in heavy sorrow (voll der grössten Trauer). But neither were these people spared. Again a volley rang out. One of the two